Audience

Uses and Gratifications Theory

Stuart Hall Theory

The reception theory states that media texts are encoded by the producer. This means that the text will have messages and values created by this producer. Then the text is decoded by an audience. Each person viewing a media text will view it differently, not always in the way the producer wanted it to.

There are 3 readings applied to this theory: dominant reading, negotiated reading and oppositional reading.

Dominant reading 

This means that an audience views a media text in the exact way the producer intended. The audience fully agrees with the ideology and the meaning behind the text. Therefore, this means that the consumption has been met and the institution is happy that the meaning they intended is understood by an audience.

How could an audience have a dominant reading?

-They are the same age so the product is more relatable

-From the same culture and have the same religious views
-The narrative is easy to understand

Negotiated reading

This is a mixture between the dominant and oppositional reading. An audience accepts the message the producer was trying to get across, yet also they have their own understanding of the media text. They don't agree or disagree, although they are aware of the point being made, however they have their own opinion of the text. 

How could an audience have a negotiated reading?

-They may not have been through the same life experiences so cannot fully understand
-Age may be too different so they fail to understand the narrative
-The messages may be hard and unclear to understand, therefore the dominant reading is not understood

Oppositional reading

The audience completely rejects the reading and creates their own understanding of the text. This means that they don't agree with the message being shown. They may misinterpret the text and see it in the wrong way. It could make them feel upset, annoyed and angry, meaning they have failed to see the intended message from the institution.

How could an audience have a oppositional reading?

-The media text conveys controversial themes
-They don't agree with whats being shown in the text
-Different cultures have different understandings
-May fail to understand what is going on
-They may find if offensive and cause negative feelings surrounding the text

Hypodermic needle theory

Implies that mass media had a direct, immediate, and powerful effect on it's audiences. Mass media in 1940's and 50's were perceived as a powerful influence on behaviour change. 

The theory suggets that mass media could influence a very large group of people directly and uniformly by 'shooting' or 'injecting' them with appropriate messages designed to trigger a desired response.  It suggests a powerful and direct flow of information from the sender to the receiver. suggets that the media messages are injected straight into a passive audience which is immediately influenced by the message. 

It expresses the view that the media is a dangerous means of communicating an idea because the receiver or audience is powerless to resist the impact of the message. People are seen as passive and are seen as having a lot of media material 'shot' at them. People end up thinking that what they are told because there are no other source of information.

The theory assumes that what we see or hear, we believe and consume. The theory implies we are brainwashed into believing the media messages.

We are consumed by media products and are influenced by them greatly. 

In the 1930's a radio broadcast of 'War of The Worlds' was performed like a real news broadcast to heighten the effect of the story, people listening thought it was real and assumed mars had come to invade the world.This demonstrates a passive audience and how an audience believes what they hear in the news and how this can quickly lead to misinterpretation. 

Cons of the theory:

-Not everyone watches the news/consumes media in the same way

-Very out of date and invalid

-Audiences are not simply passive, more up-to-date theories have proved this

-Technology has changed how we consume media and the sources where it originates from

-We are more aware of society and how institutions operate

-We are now used to consuming media texts that we understand conventions and know when to react to messages if we deem them insignificant.

How does the Bad Blood music video link or not link to the Hypodermic Needle Theory?

The strong narrative of Betrayal in the plot of the Bad Blood music video could make Taylor Swift's fans believe she is taking a side jab at someone who has betrayed her in the past. This relates to the Hypodermic needle theory because it means that the audience assume that what they're seeing has happened to the artist for her to produce a video on the subject in the first place. Furthermore, this also means that the audience believe any message that a type of media text promotes and implies that we are indeed brainwashed into believing the message being shown. However, as the theory is old, there are many cons, meaning the theory also couldn't conform to the Bad Blood music video as we are much more aware of how media institutions operate. Due to being so aware of how the media uses particular subjects to make the media text more popular, the producers of the Bad Blood music video may have chosen the subject of betrayal in order to make it seem like Taylor had 'bad blood' with someone, causing people to jump to conclusions and talk about who it could be aimed at. People believe it is a dig at Katy Perry and this shows that audiences are aware of how the institutions use certain subjects to gain more views. Therefore, audiences don't always consume the message in the same way; some people may think they've chosen the topic of betrayal for popularity as people will discuss it more, whereas others may believe they've chosen the topic of betrayal for the audience to sympathise with- proving that the theory is outdated because not everyone believes the same message and reasons behind the choice of the message a media text is trying to promote.